I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog! -Emily Dickinson

Sunday, 26 February 2012

OF DAVID AND GOLIATH AND CHILDREN SWEPT OUT TO SEA

Miracle Beach, Port Mouton Nova Scotia

Let’s take a break from Cancer.

I’ll tell you a story of Miracle Beach
and Port Mouton. It’s a little like a tale by the Grimm brothers.

One day, my friends, Clyde and Patty, are standing at the
east windows of Clyde’s home. The windows
provide a spectacular view of Miracle
Beach and a 180 view of
the ocean. On this crystal white beach are a man and woman, with their children
and children’s friends. The man is
walking his dog. They are hauling a yellow dingy.

The wind is blowing strong from the west, outward, away from
the beach. Clyde and Patty stand at the
window, horrified as the children get into the dingy and the parents push it
out into the water. Clyde has been a fisherman
since he was a young man and he knows that on a day with this kind of wind, the
children will be swept out to sea in minutes.

Clyde rushes to his car to
drive to his nearby boat while Patty stays at the window, frozen in
apprehension.

When he can’t get his boat started, Clyde
tells other fisherman the story and they agree to go out – not to rescue, but
to retrieve the bodies.

Meanwhile, Patty watches as the children are swept out to
sea. It becomes evident that they are in trouble. They are trying to row, but
frightened and leaning towards shore. The dingy is tipping dangerously. The
father continues to stand or to walk the dog, but finally the mother swims out
to them, grabs the rope attached to the dingy and begins to pull it back in. By
now, there are other people on the beach, but until the woman is 20 feet from
shore, no one moves to help her. Finally, a man swims out, grabs the rope and
finishes landing the dingy on shore. Her husband does nothing when his wife and
children are ashore. There is no hug, no show of relief. He continues to walk
his dog.

I am reminded of the tale of Hansel and Gretel. It’s easy to picture this story of children nearly lost, standing at those east windows. The mental
picture of the dingy being blown out to sea stays with me. I’m chilled by the
indifference of the father. I remember how the fishermen in Peggy’s Cove went
out onto the water when Flight 111 went down. In the deep of night, with fire
on the ocean, they had hoped for survivors and stayed all night, finding
nothing but body parts and wreckage. Clyde tells
me some of them could never go back to sea after that.

Clyde talks about the ocean
with love and reverence. It had never before occurred to me that fishermen are
aware, each time they go out, that they might not return – like firemen, like any
humans who work directly with powerful elements. Clyde
says, “You have to respect it, but the ocean takes care of you and you take
care of the ocean.”

He and his neighbors have stopped the construction of a fish
farm on their Bay. In this age when corporation and government trump the will
of citizens, they’ve won a major battle to take care of the ocean. But the war
goes on. There is always someone who wants resources and refuses to face the
implications of their taking. The fight to save the Bay is ongoing but those
who have grown up in such places realize more deeply than any of us, the
gratitude we owe to the ocean and the land. And they are motivated.

Maybe this is what the Occupy movement really is. People who
are no longer waiting for the government to step in or change. Grass roots
self-help. Active communities. Davids refusing to back down from Goliaths.

I found it chilling too...and it had a kind fairy tale evil...very disturbing.And here's a quote from Patty, from an email."Thank you for spreading the story about the Friends of Port Mouton. In fact, the fish farm story is even more amazing - they actually got the fish farm dismantled and destroyed by the company on the basis of their scientific work and volunteer work. It will be back, though, and the fight is only bigger now."